This Artist Paints the Prettiest Pastoral Scenes on Her Nails
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In Audrey Swatches’s world, the gardens bloom technicolor, thick and luscious all year long. That is—on the tiny canvas of her nail. Within the tight and restricted architecture of a mani, Audrey creates pretty, whimsical scenes: Dancing skeletons and fairy queens, a quaint village, fields of mushrooms and carp-filled ponds, blossoming flower beds and sprouting vegetable plots. Some look like Hans Christian Andersen storybook tableaux, updated with sumptuous jewel tones and shimmering textures to make a modern mani.
Audrey, 27, became interested in nail art through Simply Nailogical, a Canadian YouTuber known for her elaborate sets, like a 3-D snowglobe decal and “polish mountains.” Audrey bought starter polishes from the first launch of Simply Nailogical’s brand Holo Taco. But her own experiments in nail art came much later.
She recalls her first attempts at polished creations in the spring of 2023: “I used the bottle brush to just swoop some blue blobs on my nail. I played around with stamping, water marbling, and more basic abstract designs.” It seems then quite a rapid ascent to the intricate scenes and tiny wildlife she paints today. “I have a background in art—I went to an arts high school and I have my BFA in studio art,” she explains. Nail polish is an extension of her other mediums. “But nail art is not my full-time job! I make a little bit of money through swatching or creating content for brands, and some through affiliate links and codes. My ‘real’ job is in childcare, I’m an ECA in an infant room—the babies are usually big fans of my nails.”
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Her first real technical set featured skeletons lying in a mossy field studded with mushrooms, inspired by the eerie natural references of Hozier’s song “In a Week”: “I have never known peace like the damp grass that yields to me, I have never known hunger like these insects that feast on me.” But she draws from an expansive pool of references: from textile art that recalls her grandmother’s quilting and mediums like ceramics and embroidery: “I think they follow a lot of the same rules as nail art.” Her Instagram saved folder is enormous and features skilled nail artists like Kelly Ornstein and Bees Knees Nails.
Nowadays, Audrey creates a lot of what she calls “skittle” sets, where each individual nail has a different design—a real technical skill, but one that comes with a more personal perspective. “Something that’s really led my work—even through high school and university—is the thought that if I can’t be the best at something, the most talented, I should at least be interesting,” she says. “I do feel a lot more confident in my skill now, after lots and lots of practice, but I think that’s where those skittles came from at first.”
While she’s proud of her increasingly detailed designs and astute skill—like one stunning nail that features a fairy on a magnetic background, and that catches the light from various angles to look like it’s dancing—she’s most thrilled when other artists are inspired by her work. And today, she counts on a vibrant and encouraging community of other nail artists. “The nail community is one of the nicest places I’ve found on the internet,” she says. “We have these collabs, where we join group chats based around specific themes—cottagecore, pattern matching, people’s birthdays—and we all paint something on the theme and then post on the same day. It’s very cute.”
